Voicy vs Apple Dictation: is a paid dictation app worth it?

If you only dictate on Apple devices, start with Apple Dictation: it's free, already on your Mac, iPhone and iPad, and adds punctuation on its own. Voicy earns its subscription if you also dictate on Windows, Linux or Android and want one app with the same behavior everywhere, including a Chrome extension.

We make Sayburst, a Mac dictation app that comes up at the end. For Voicy we used its own website: the homepage and FAQ, the pricing page, the offline dictation page and the privacy policy. For Apple, the Mac Dictation guide. All checked October 31, 2026. We haven't tested Voicy hands-on for this page.

#Side by side

#What you get for free

Apple Dictation is in System Settings > Keyboard > Dictation. Once it's on, press the microphone key, use the dictation shortcut, or pick Edit > Start Dictation in any app. It inserts commas, periods and question marks automatically in supported languages, understands "new line" and "new paragraph", and will insert emoji by name. Apple says there's no timeout on how long you can dictate; it stops after 30 seconds without speech. On macOS 27, with Apple Intelligence on Macs with M3 or later and 12 GB of memory, an on-device model also improves spelling, punctuation and capitalization in English.

Its gaps are the familiar ones: no vocabulary for names, no filler removal mentioned in Apple's guide, and nothing on Windows or Android. It also steps aside when Voice Control is on, since the two can't run at once. For quick replies and short notes none of that matters much; for a daily writing habit, it adds up to a lot of fixing by hand. If it stops working, our Mac dictation troubleshooting guide covers the usual causes.

#What Voicy charges for

Voicy is a subscription dictation app: $8.49 a month, $82 a year per its FAQ (20% off annual), or a $260 lifetime license. Students and people with disabilities get 20% off. There's no free tier, only a trial with 30 minutes of recording time and full features, no card required. A Team plan is $6.79 per user per month with a three-user minimum. Plan-by-plan detail is in our Voicy pricing guide.

What the money buys, according to Voicy's pages:

• Every platform. Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android, plus a Chrome extension. That's the main thing Apple can't match.
• 50+ languages with automatic language detection.
• An offline mode on the desktop apps (Mac, Windows, Linux) that transcribes on your computer in 25 languages. On Mac it needs macOS 15 or later, and you download the model once while online.

#Where your voice goes

This is worth reading closely if privacy is why you're shopping.

Voicy's privacy policy says that in normal use your recording is sent to Voicy's servers, hosted in the EU and US, and the audio goes to the Groq API for transcription and post-processing. Voicy says it doesn't store recordings or transcriptions, and that Groq doesn't retain what it sends. The exception is offline mode on desktop, where audio is transcribed on your device and sent to neither.

Apple puts the answer in Keyboard settings: it shows whether your dictation is processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers. Separately, you choose whether to share audio recordings to help improve Siri and Dictation, under Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements.

#Which should you pick?

• Apple Dictation if you're all-Apple, your dictation is mostly short, and free matters. It's also the one to try first: if it already handles your day, you've spent nothing.
• Voicy if you split time between a Mac and a Windows PC or Android phone and want one subscription that works the same on each.

#A third option: Sayburst

If you're on a Mac and want more than Apple gives you without a subscription, Sayburst is built for exactly that. Hold fn, speak, let go, and the text lands at your cursor in any app. Recognition runs on your Mac, it works without internet once the model is downloaded, and it costs $29 once for one Mac after a 7-day free trial. No account.

The difference from Apple shows up in the cleanup, which runs on your Mac instantly with no extra download. Writing a cover letter, you say:

"I'm writing about the, um, the junior designer role at Fieldnote. New paragraph. I spent the last three years running, uh, brand work for a small agency in Leeds."

And the letter gets:

I'm writing about the junior designer role at Fieldnote.

I spent the last three years running brand work for a small agency in Leeds.

Fillers and the repeated "the" are gone, and "new paragraph" became a paragraph break. Add "Fieldnote" to the vocabulary once and it's spelled your way every time.

Sayburst is Mac-only (Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later), so Voicy is the better fit if you also need Windows or Android. For more, see Sayburst vs Apple Dictation, Sayburst vs Voicy, and all matchups on /compare.

Our take

Apple Dictation is the right free choice for anyone who lives on Apple devices. Voicy makes sense if you need one dictation app across Windows, Linux, Android and your Mac, and you're fine with a subscription and cloud processing outside offline mode. For cleaner dictation on a Mac that stays on the Mac, Sayburst costs $29 once.

Questions people ask

Is Voicy better than Apple Dictation?

It depends on where you work. Voicy runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android and as a Chrome extension, so it suits people who switch devices. On a Mac alone, Apple Dictation is free, built in and punctuates for you.

Is Voicy free?

No. Voicy has a free trial with 30 minutes of recording time, then Pro is $8.49 a month or $82 a year, or $260 for a lifetime license. Its FAQ says there is no completely free tier.

Does Voicy send my audio to the cloud?

In normal use, yes. Voicy's privacy policy says recordings go to its servers in the EU and US and the audio is sent to the Groq API for transcription; it says neither keeps the data. Its desktop offline mode transcribes on your computer instead.

Does Apple Dictation work offline on a Mac?

It can. Keyboard settings tell you whether your dictation is processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers. Apple says dictation isn't available in every language or region, and features vary.